


The Trivial Matters

by TranscendentalSpaceGem



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Basically 7000+ words of Steven and Connie working stuff out, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, Light Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, Therapy, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23650564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TranscendentalSpaceGem/pseuds/TranscendentalSpaceGem
Summary: "We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love." ~ Robert Fulghum.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Comments: 21
Kudos: 115





	The Trivial Matters

**Author's Note:**

> I had this listed as a sequel to my Connie fic but since I am working on a proper sequel to that now this is just one version of how I think things could go between Steven and Connie post I Am My Monster and pre The Future.

These days it wasn't weird for Steven to spend twenty-ish minutes after his session with Dr. Kim with his eyes locked on his ceiling as if it had answers he just couldn't find. He would start to play her words over in his head in case he missed some secret message that would snap him into feeling better. Or more better because he did feel better... He felt mostly better… He felt somewhat better. Whatever he was feeling it was on the "better" side of the scale.

It had been an easy day. That was the strangest thing about therapy to Steven. That some days it felt very easy. He had gotten his shame out the way the first day he spoke with Dr. Kim. Because for the first time Steven had to talk about himself. He couldn’t talk about anything else. He wasn’t allowed to. Well, he could talk about whatever he liked. Yet somehow whatever topic he had started on would come back to him based on his therapist's questions and comments. He’s not even sure how she did it. She led him through his thoughts and feelings while he didn’t even realize she was doing it. Which was probably how and why at the twenty-two minute mark of his first appointment he had started crying about who else but _her_. She hadn’t come up since but it’s hard to go back behind your walls with someone after you’ve spent twenty-five minutes glowing while alternating between sobbing and yelling about your dead mom in front of them. Not that Steven didn’t unconsciously try to close himself off to his doctor. It was his initial response to everything those days. He had to fight it because that was the whole point of being in therapy. He was supposed to be confronting things not hiding from them.

Days like that were hard. Days like that happened more often than not but they wouldn’t call therapy work if it wasn’t work. So yeah some days were hard. Some days though got to be easy. Some days he just got to relax in his bed, laptop open and talk about whatever he liked. It didn’t always have to be a heavy conversation. Some of it was just checking in on him to make sure he was doing things to help himself. Eating well? Check! Exercise? Check! Other times it was just brainstorming ideas for things he could do later. He was keeping a list of suggestions for when he was ready to actually leave his house (honestly most days he wasn't). He had gotten back into playing guitar though. He hadn't even realized how much he had let his favorite hobby fall to the wayside. Days like that made the days it felt like someone was digging through the garbage of his soul more manageable. It was nice in a way that talking to his friends and family couldn’t be nice. It was nice in a way that didn’t make him feel guilty for wasting her time. Steven couldn’t help but feel like a burden on everyone. In some ways he always felt that way. He was supposed to work on that. He wasn’t a waste or a burden on Dr. Kim because this was exactly what this woman’s job was. She was paid to listen to all his problems. So in a way getting help was also him helping her. He chastised himself. He was supposed to be working on that too. It was okay to do things for himself. Not everything he did had to benefit other people in some way. It could all be so complicated. That’s why he liked the days where he didn’t have to process too much and could just get thoughts out of his head.

However with one question Dr. Kim turned his easy day into a hard one.

“Who is Connie?”

Steven was stopped by the question. He hadn’t been looking at the screen while he was talking because eye contact even through a screen was hard when discussing certain things. His brain seemed to fizzle out as he focused in on the doctor’s face. She was good at not looking as if she were prying, a skill that he wished he could ask her to teach Amethyst. The Gem’s heart was in the right place but her tact in making a probing question sound casual needed work. While it didn’t look as if she was looking at him under a microscope (something he felt with a lot of people) he could tell she was waiting.

“Connie?”

“Yes, Connie.”

He must have said her name. “Why?”

“I was curious.” He saw her write something down. He hated when she did that. He knew why she did it but he hated when she did. “Continue.”

“Right.” What had he been saying? Whatever it was it was related to Connie.

“You met some kids at a roller rink.” He heard his therapist remind him gently, “You weren’t used to being around kids your own age-”

“Except Connie.”

“Yes.” She wrote something down again and he forced down his desire to attempt to decipher it through the screen, “Do you feel any particular way about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“It can’t be fun having no one around your age to talk to or hang out with.”

“I have Connie.” That came out hard. It came out painful. The session was quickly slipping out of his control.

“So you said."

“She’s my best friend.” He felt like she was actually going to continue but he had felt an urge to confess something. That Connie was his friend apparently.

“You’ve never mentioned her before.”

“What? No. That can’t be true.”

“Perhaps I am mistaken then. The name simply doesn’t sound familiar.”

“It should! Connie is my best friend! Why wouldn't I talk about her? That would be weird, right?”

"You don't have to convince me of anything. I believe you."

“I’m not trying to convince you! I just know I must have told you about her. I talk about Connie all the time.”

“Would you like to talk about Connie right now, Steven?”

Suddenly that feeling he got whenever he and his therapist neared a door he would rather not even touch or look at let alone open. The full pink glow had gone away for the most part though every once and while a faint tint of pink would emanate off his skin. He appreciated that Dr. Kim tried not to look like that unnerved her. She was the only one who had been willing to work with a strange guy like him. He also always, always saw her write something when he turned pink. Which she was doing then because it had happened. His skin was a soft pink shade just from something as simple as being asked if he wanted to talk about Connie. So there was no way he’d ever brought her up before. That was odd.

“It’s up to you, you know? We don’t have to talk about anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

Steven bit the inside of his cheek "Connie doesn't make me uncomfortable."

"Okay," she said then gently continued, "Then how long have you known each other?"

"We met a couple years ago. It's actually a pretty funny story." He felt himself laugh, only for it to quickly be overtaken by a pain in his abdomen and his skin glowed a little brighter, "Except that we almost drowned. That part is less funny."

Again she wrote something down but she didn't push it. Even if she was going to Steven would have cut her off with how quickly he added, "But it has a happy ending. If it hadn't happened then Connie and I might not be friends and..."

Steven remembered feeling like he was the worst being in the galaxy. He remembered feeling like everyone expected him to be this perfect angel and he had been a terrible person for lying to the ones he cared about. He remembered how much he hated himself and all of them and how he didn’t know how to make the pain stop. He remembered being a monster, in his head and in a literal sense. He remembered how so many people he cared about came to his side to prove him wrong. He remembered how they had all come at him with nothing but their affection. He remembered feeling seen after months of being invisible. He learned later that Connie had rallied them. "...I'm not sure how I'd survive without her."

"It sounds like she means a lot to you."

"She does." She had loved him even when he felt unlovable. She had even- Something took a hold of him then and for some reason he couldn’t fully comprehend he found himself confessing, "I asked her to marry me."

"Oh really?" she asked, sounding more sure of herself than she usually was. Probably because he wasn't telling her a story about his “adventures” with magic warriors from space and instead was talking about the more human mistakes he had made recently. "When was this?"

"Earlier this year. Before everything fell apart." He saw Dr. Kim's eyes widen at that information. She looked confused again so he felt the need to add. "She said no though."

"Oh. That must have hurt." He flared up even more pink at her words.

"Well yeah but- Of course she said no! It was dumb of me to even ask. She's already got plans for college and her life. Marrying me would have just made that stuff more complicated for her."

"Well that's probably true," his doctor said, nodding as she did, "And it's good that you recognize and understand the reasons she isn’t ready for something that intense. But, Steven, it's still allowed to hurt. Getting rejected is painful for most people. It’s difficult to put yourself out there like that and get your heart broken."

His skin fluctuated between normal and bright pink. He hadn't thought about his failed proposal since it happened. There were more immediate things to handle like the fact he had almost killed his father in a car crash. He was sturdy enough that he would have been fine but his dad was lucky to not even have any broken bones! Then there was him shattering Jasper, even if that had been an accident and he had brought her back, for a full hour she had been dead. Besides that his desire to slam White Diamond’s head into a pillar had been entirely meant to shatter her. Oh and he had transformed into a giant monster in the middle of his panic attack. His feelings about Connie and their relationship seemed trivial at best when compared to that.

"Steven?” He heard his therapist call him. He must have zoned out. So he forced a smile and continued where they left off.

"Yeah but I don't blame her. I mean we’re young and we haven’t even kissed. She's just my… She’s my Connie."

"Your feelings aren't insignificant. If something hurts then it's okay to feel that."

"I- uh" He felt tears building up. His skin settled on some in-between color again so he was only slightly pinkish instead of full on glowing. It was okay. This was her job. "I didn't want to lose her. She knows exactly what she wants and I don’t. Why would she want to be with somebody who can’t even figure out how to live? I used to feel so amazing when we were together. And I just wanted to always be with her and always feel that amazing."

"Used to?" Oh. He did say “used to” didn’t he? 

"Things have been different since everything happened.” His thoughts seemed to be working themselves out as he spoke. “She comes around a lot. More than before. She'll bring her work and study here so I'm not alone all day. But things feel different somehow. I don't know how to put it into words."

He averted his eyes, "It's not as important as all the other stuff we have going on."

"You don't think your relationship with Connie is important?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then I think logically that means whatever you have to say to her is also important. Right?"

"I-" He kept his eyes on the keyboard of his laptop. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"That's fine. We happen to be almost out of time for today anyway. Maybe we could come back to this? Or not. That's entirely up to you." As she spoke, she was typing what he assumed was their next appointment, "But Steven please try to remember that if something matters to you that means it matters. Something you feel this strongly about isn't trivial and you aren't being selfish for telling someone how you feel. Understand?"

All Steven could do was nod weakly.

"Alright then, I sent you an appointment reminder. I'll talk to you in a few days."

"Yeah, sounds good doc. Bye." With that the call ended. A moment later he shut his laptop and rolled onto his back. He has been staring at the ceiling ever since. More out of confusion than anything else. It had been a long time since the thought of Connie had turned him pink. The last time he remembered it happening was in the hospital. A lot had happened since. Steven hadn't had enough of a break in his thoughts to consider how things were going with Connie.

Obviously they were going well. Things with Connie were great. He hadn't been lying. She came over all the time. In fact she said she might come over that day. Nine times out of ten if Connie said she might be coming over it meant she was coming over so long as one of her parents would bring her. That became ten times out of ten after Steven got the Dondai from his dad and could pick her up himself. Lion was also a pretty big help with that as well provided he was in the mood to actually listen to him. Steven was pretty sure that _his_ pet liked Connie a lot more than him. Not that Steven would blame him. Connie was much cooler to be around than he was. Steven would probably like Connie more than him if he were Lion too. But then Steven really, really liked Connie. In a way he hadn’t ever liked anyone else. 

Standing up, Steven wandered out to his deck. His room had mostly survived his rampage. (Bismuth worked fast on the rest of his place probably because she didn't need to sleep and had repaired it in a couple weeks.) He grabbed his guitar and leaned on the banister to look at the ocean while he played. One of the books he read said looking at water was good for anxiety. He mindlessly began to play. He tried to play every day like he used to do under his therapist's strong encouragement. She told him he needed to remember the things that brought him even the smallest amount of happiness. Music had always made him happy. He was good at it too. He could play at least four instruments by the time he was only thirteen and could pick a new one up rather quickly. He had also often been told he was blessed with an amazing natural singing voice and innate sense of musicality. He used to write songs in minutes. When was the last time he even wrote a song?

Steven caught that faint pink color tint his fingers out of the corner of his eye and turned his gaze onto them. Almost without his permission they had started to play the only song he had written in over a year. The song he wrote for Connie. He almost threw his guitar off of the deck. Instead he dropped it as he backed away from it like it was going to bite him and tripped onto his butt. After a moment of watching it almost waiting for it to attack him, he sat up on his legs where he was. Hands tightly clenched on his knees he began breathing the way he had been working on. He focused on what he could see, what he could hear and smell and feel to remind himself where he was. That he was in his home and he was safe. 

One of the things he heard was his front screen door open and close followed shortly by, "Steven? Hey, you here?"

Steven laughed despite himself. Once Connie had said she felt weird being in his house with him not there. It was almost hard to believe that she was the same girl who didn't knock before she came in and lounged around the place like she'd lived there her whole life. When he was busy on homeworld she would hang out there and wait for him. His visits back were short and they wanted to spend any free moment that they had together. Then school started and it was weeks between visits. They hung out more when he was spending the majority of his time on another planet than when he was a little over a thirty minute walk from her house. Could anyone blame him for feeling like she was drifting away?

She was coming over again though. He saw her sometimes three times a week. That should make him happy. He should be overjoyed that Connie was making an effort to see him as often as she could. He looked forward to the little bits of human interaction he got outside of his dad. Most of which were with Connie. She cared about him and she wanted him to know she cared. Even if they sometimes just sat in the same room reading two separate books or she quizzed herself while he played video games. They were together and that was what mattered to him. That was what he wanted.

Except actually it wasn’t.

“Steven?” he looked into his room to see Connie make her way to the door to his deck. “Hey, there Steven-san, what are you up to? Training in the way of the boomerang blade?”

He looked at the way he was sitting and understood her reference. He stood, “I haven't watched those movies in years. Besides I’m pretty sure you're the one here who's the expert on swords.”

“Eh. You’re not wrong..” Connie smiled then in a concerned voice asked, “How are you today?”

“Okay.” Her eyes narrowed. He always struggled to lie to Connie.

“Steven.” She probed gently

“Really.”

“Steven...” She stretched his name in warning.

“I am.”

“Steven!” She demanded.

He sighed. “My therapy session got a little off-track today. That's all.”

“Aww, yeah I guess that is a bummer.” Connie reached out to put her other hand on his arm but he backed away to get his guitar before she could. Off-track was a nice way of putting ‘I lost control of what I wanted to talk about.’ Not that he should be trying to control it. He just hadn’t realized things weren’t as simple with Connie as he thought. It wasn’t a bubble he had been ready to pop. Unlike the literal bubbles he was able to create this metaphorical one couldn't be so easily rebuilt. He leaned down to pick up his guitar. He felt Connie come up behind him.

“Are you playing music again?”

He turned to her as he stood up. “Uh yeah. Dr. Kim thought it would be good if I got back into some of my old hobbies. She said it might help me get in touch with myself again.”

She nodded and sounded proud when she said, “Oh! That’s good. It’s great that you're trying so hard to take better care of yourself. And besides,” a blush came onto her face, “You play so well and your voice sounds so beautiful when you sing.”

Usually Steven enjoyed making Connie blush. It stirred something in him that made his body pulse similar to the way his powers did but felt more human. Just because he was a gem hybrid and he had grown up without the childhood that kids normally had didn’t mean he wasn’t in some ways exactly like most other teenagers. He still liked girls. Actually he knew he liked more than girls. He also knew he liked Connie and Connie liked him. Honestly, he wasn’t stupid and was confident everyone knew he and Connie liked each other. His dad even slipped up during one of their messy conversations about Steven becoming a man and had accidentally mentioned Connie _by name_ on the subject of sex. Clumsily adding ‘or, you know, whoever’ had not been a good cover.

"I guess. It's more like just me playing around with it. I don't write songs or anything anymore." He pushed past her and into his room. He couldn't tell if her gasp was genuine as she followed after him.

"Really? You could write a song in half a day when we were kids."

He sat on his bed and set his guitar down next to it. "Well it's not that I can't anymore. I probably still could. I just don't."

"Why don't you try?" she said as she sat down on the floor at the foot of his bed. She had that look people sometimes gave him. The one where it seemed they were preparing to walk over a crumbling ice bridge. Everyone tried hard to be respectful of and patient with him. That was kind of them but it could also make him feel like he was one of Peridot's less stable experiments, which often blew up or collapsed in on themselves. She reached to touch his hand. He turned his hand over so he could hold hers and run his thumb over her knuckles. They had been holding hands since the day they met. As they got older it felt like her hands shrunk. He knew they were actually different sizes because his hand had gotten bigger but to him it felt more like hers got smaller instead. His stockiness had meant little to him as a kid but he was much more aware of it as a teenager.

"I don't know." 

"You want to try today? I don't have that much homework. I could listen and tell you what I think. My ear for music isn't as tuned in as yours but I think I could give some good feedback anyway."

"I don't really want to write a song."

"You don't have to. Writing songs was a big part of why you loved playing music though. If your therapist suggested you should get back into your hobbies I was just thinking it might help a bit. It's been years since you did it."

Steven felt his skin burn as he fought off his pink glow. It had only been a couple months since he wrote a song and she should know that. Letting her go he reached over for his guitar which made her smile. That was until he began to play the song he was playing on the deck. He sang the words he had written for her in probably the quietest and least beautiful version of his voice anyone had ever heard. He didn't get through half the lines before she got to her feet. He stopped when she did but he refused to look at her.

"Fine. You've made your point, Steven." She looked away, her cheeks flushed with something other than infatuation, "I was just trying to help."

"I don't need your help," he snapped, "I was handling this just fine until you got here!"

"Steven." She started angry but her voice calmed quickly. "I'm sorry if I upset you."

He looked away from her as he messed with the strings again. He didn't play anything coherent, just ran through random notes. He would start to string some of them together, would hate how it sounded and start over. He got through the beginnings of a few melodies but just continued to get frustrated. Eventually he gave up and went back to just plucking on it without much thought. She stood there silently as he fiddled with it, just watching him, completely still the entire time.

"Do you want me to go?" Her voice was weak and apologetic.

"No." He sighed. "I want you to stay. I want to tell you to go away but I actually want you to stay."

Dr. Kim said it was normal to test people when you felt abandoned. It wasn't healthy but lots of people pushed their loved ones away hoping they would push back and assert themselves in your life. He didn't want Connie to leave. He wanted her to fight to stay with him if he did tell her to leave. That wasn't fair to her and it was cruel of him. Why did he need anyone to prove that they loved him? Probably because he didn't feel worthy of it but still needed it. He may not have been a monster then but he had once and had the capability to be one again. Connie deserved to love a guy who could give her a normal, happy life.

"I'm sorry," he finally said as she sat on his bed with him, something she rarely did.

"It's okay," she said rubbing his back, "You've got a lot of confusing and conflicting emotions going on right now."

"No, not for yelling at you. Though yeah I'm sorry for that too." He couldn't look at her, "I meant I'm sorry I asked you to marry me."

"Oh." was all she said. They hadn't talked about it since it happened. She had offered to stay and talk about it but that was before he was ready to talk to anyone about anything. He'd been able to talk through so many other things. Heavier things like how he and his dad had a long talk about Steven crashing his van. He had been able to let the gems (Pearl especially) help him start to work through what he did to Jasper and thought about doing to White Diamond. Why did this feel as world ending as all those other things?

"You don't have to be sorry," she finally continued amidst the soft sound of his guitar, "I meant what I said. I want to marry you. Someday."

"But not now." Why did that make him feel awful? He understood it. He had just gone over with his doctor how he knew why Connie had said 'no.'

"Yes, not now! But I really mean not now! We're young. We wouldn't even be able to legally drink at our own wedding! Besides I have so much going on and you have so much going on. It's not the right time for us. Why are you so scared that it won't happen?"

He stopped playing and finally looked over at her. "I'm not scared. I just like being around you. And I want to be together."

"We are together." 

"No, we're not!"

He dropped his guitar as he stood. He needed to stop doing that before he broke it. He was so angry he didn't care. He saw pink all around him and knew it was happening. He was looming over her and was worried he had grown in size but realized it was just because she remained sitting on his bed. There was fear in her eyes but not from what was happening in front of her. She had seen him turn pink before and all it ever brought to her face was concern. It was from something else. Suddenly all at once it made sense to him.

"I'm not afraid. _But you are._ "

"Of course I'm not afraid. I know this happens to you and it's okay. I'm here for you-"

His tone was gentle as his pigment slowly shifted away from bright pink, "You're not afraid of me but you're afraid of **this**."

He motioned between them and Connie tightly gripped his bed sheets. Her whole body had tensed. Steven couldn't believe he was that big of an idiot. He had known Connie loved him. What he hadn't known was Connie wished she _didn't_ love him. He had always wondered why she had kissed him before going off to camp only to shut him down when he tried to return her affection. Because Connie wanted to kiss him but she didn't want him to kiss her back. He sat back down next to her and felt the bed sink under his weight much more than it should have. Tears were already falling from his eyes. Was he really so unlovable even the girl _who already loved him_ couldn't stand the thought that she did?

"I'm not afraid."

"But you still don't want to be with me."

"Yes I do, Steven! I want to marry you! Just no-"

"Not now! I know. I'm not talking about marrying me. I'm talking about just being with me."

"I don't understand. I'm with you right now!"

"No, I mean- I- Why aren't we together? The way other teenagers are? We like each other the same way they do so why not? Why aren't we together if you want to spend your life with me? Why aren't we together when I know that we both want to be? I know things are weird with me sometimes but I'm not that different from other guys." He took her hands into his own. "I want to be with you. I want to go out on dates with you, like normal teenagers, like your cram school friends do. I want to celebrate normal anniversaries like when we met and when we got together. I want to kiss you and touch you and…" he blushed and swallowed hard, "Do, you know, _other stuff_ the way normal teenagers get to do when they feel like this about someone. I want to be together like that."

"Steven…"

"Aren't I at least normal enough for us to be together, Connie?" 

"This isn't normal!" For the first time since she got there she looked angry at how he pushed her. Maybe his therapist was wrong and sharing had been a bad idea. She got to her feet to yell up at his ceiling. "Nothing about this is normal!"

Steven followed her onto her feet. "I know it’s weird but I can't help all of this gem stuff going on with me. It doesn't mean I don't want what other people do! I'm still human!"

"Ugh, I don't care that you're half magical alien or whatever the gems are! Trust me, I got used to that a long time ago!"

"But-"

"Normal people don't fall in love when they're twelve years old!"

"What?" He watched her as she started to pace.

"I mean what does that say about me? What is wrong with me?” She seemed to have gone off into her own world. “I care about you so much I fought actual dictators and I almost died for you. I threw my whole childhood away because I wanted to be close to you and be part of your world! Because I wanted to keep you safe! You're so important to me that even as a giant pink monster I couldn't not care about you! I know I'm going to spend my life with you and I know I'm going to marry you! Maybe one day I'll even live as Stevonnie with you. Who knows? I don't! But I know normal people aren't like this!"

Suddenly, with tears in her eyes, her knees gave out from under her as if she couldn't take the weight anymore. Steven caught her and they collapsed to the floor together. Connie cried softly into his chest with the lapels of his jacket held tightly in her hands. He and Connie were about the same height but she was slipping to the ground and that made her a whole head shorter than him. He put his chin on her head and held her to him. Her arms wrapped around him and she held him like he was the only thing keeping her in the real world.

"I love you, Steven."

He wanted to say it back but didn’t think he should.

"I'm so in love with you and you had the nerve to die right in front of me anyway."

"I didn't do it on purpose…" He hadn't actually died when White Diamond pulled out his gem although he didn't correct her. Besides that he probably would have if she hadn't carried him to his other pink half. But it made no difference to her. As far as she interpreted it he had died.

"I know." She cuddled into him as much as she could manage as her fingers dug roughly into his back. It reminded him briefly of Garnet clinging to him out of love. She started to shake and he could hear her crying. "It's not your fault. I was the stupid kid who decided to become some kind of child solider. I just wanted to help you so badly. I didn't think that- I didn't know…"

"Shh,” he shushed, "It's okay. Trust me. Almost dying a few times before you've even hit puberty isn't the easiest thing to deal with."

She pulled back to look at him, "Yeah, well, you would know. And a lot better than me."

She tried to move away but all it took was one gentle tug for her to fall back into him. He wasn't letting her block him out just like she hadn't let him block her out.

"What you're going through is so much worse than me. I shouldn't be feeling this awful! I went through less than half of everything you've been through. And here I am telling you off for dying and making it about me when you're the one who actually died! How selfish is that?"

He parroted the words without thinking, "If something matters to you that means it matters and your feelings aren't selfish."

She laughed a tiny bit then she sat up so they were the same height again, "That sounds like therapist talk."

"Probably cause it is."

"Yeah mine says the same thing."

"You go to therapy?"

"Yeah, every two weeks."

"You didn't tell me that."

"I didn't think you would want to know about any of that." A look of shame came to her face. "And I thought you would probably blame yourself for everything I'm dealing with."

"It is a little my fault."

"It's not though. You didn't choose to be the son of the leader of a rebellion from thousands of years ago. You didn't choose to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe. You never had a choice in any of this, Steven. You had no other option but to step up and be what they all wanted you to be." She sighed and turned her eyes to the ceiling again, "Me? I chose to learn sword fighting and I chose to fight by your side. I chose to get involved in something I could only barely understand. So it's not your fault because I had a choice in this. I always had a choice."

She brought her eyes in contact with his and looked suddenly love struck through her sadness. She shifted to lay her head onto his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his torso as she did. "At least I had a choice in all that. Though it was hard to feel like I had any other option because I never had a choice when it came to you. I didn't choose to fall in love with you. That was just what happened and I just had to deal with it."

He shook his head. "You still have a choice, Connie. If being around me is some kind of trigger for you I want you to do what's best for you not me. I can let you go if I have to."

That was a lie. She was the one great love of his life. He knew that if Connie didn't want him then he would never fall in love again. That also meant he was at the mercy of whatever was best for her. If he wasn’t good for her or he wasn’t what she wanted then he wanted her to go find what would be good for her or what she did want. True, he was working on his issues when it came to self-sacrifice but not triggering the girl you love most likely didn’t fit into that category.

"No. It's not that."

He was still concerned but he couldn't help but be relieved. "Then what is it?" 

"I'm so happy when I'm with you." She sounded so angry about it.

"I don't understand."

"I want everything you want. I want to go out with you on real proper dates. I want to celebrate anniversaries. I want to kiss you-" it was her turn to blush and swallow, "I want to do a lot more than just kiss you actually. I want us to be together the way people our age normally are."

"But…"

"But we're not normal. I’m not normal. We're weird and I'm not sure we can be normal. I try so hard to be. I don't feel normal with my normal friends at my normal school. Instead I feel like a freak surrounded by normal people. I feel like maybe if I'm around them enough it will make me normal too. But it just makes me feel even more weird than I already do. So then I think maybe if I get good grades, if I get into a good school, if I get a good job then I will finally be normal.” She twisted her head to look right at him. “Then, somehow, when I'm with you suddenly I do. Suddenly I’m normal. Your world feels more normal to me than mine. I feel more at home with aliens and monsters than I do at school. It makes no sense! I make no sense! So what is wrong with me?"

"I don't think anything is wrong with you." He rested his head against her head as they slid further onto the floor, "At least you feel normal here. I don't feel normal, well, anywhere really. Most of the time. Sometimes I do. I feel normal with you. When it's just us."

"Does it make you happy?" she asked but didn't wait for an answer, "It makes me happy. To be with you and feel like I'm normal. And it's nice to be happy but it's also hard."

"You're allowed to be happy. I know it can feel like a lie when you feel good or it feels scary because you don't think it will last but it's still okay to be happy sometimes."

He slid his arm around her waist as well. "And I'm happy with you too."

She smiled at him moving close enough their bodies were touching. "Is it weird that I'm happy right now? Even though I'm crying and venting, I'm still happy?"

"No and even if it is maybe that's okay. And maybe no one else has ever fallen in love when they were only twelve and so that's not normal. But I also know someone who fell in love when they were only thirteen. So, you aren't the only weird one here."

"I guess we’re a pair of weirdos then, huh?" she said moving a hand onto his knee with a smile on her face, "But at least we aren't alone."

"Yeah, we're not. Not ever." He leaned his head on hers as they sat in silence just letting time tick by. Just existing in the weirdness. It felt cathartic to finally know where he and Connie stood even if it had left him disappointed. He felt, not better but on the better side of the scale, even if nothing had changed.

"I'm sorry we can't be normal together," she said after what felt like both hours and seconds went by. "But maybe..."

He turned to her and she somehow moved closer to him, almost in his lap as she continued, "Maybe we could be weird together instead."

"You mean like…"

"Yeah." Her face was close to his face and despite not being the best with social interactions, Steven had a strong feeling it was an open invitation. That if he wanted to do it, then it was okay and he really wanted to do it.

So Steven kissed Connie. He pushed himself forward with a hand behind him on the floor and kept her against him with the arm he had around her back. Her hand on his knee tightened before it found its way to his chest. Her arm resting on his back tried to pull him closer too as if their bodies could be pressed together any more than they already were without accidentally creating Stevonnie. It all happened at once as it was a short kiss. However before they had even pulled fully away his free hand went to her shoulder and he leaned back in for another short kiss. He pulled back only for the same thing to happen once again. Then again and again. And again after that. His kiss was held a bit longer each time. He really was trying very hard to stop kissing Connie. Although she didn't seem to mind based on the little giggles and whimpers she made between every one.

"Steven," she managed to half whine in annoyance and half whine in pleasure during one of the short breaks between kissing. She hummed into his mouth when he went in for the next kiss so whatever it was, it couldn't be that important. After a few more moments she pushed him back to stop him from getting his lips onto hers anymore. With a soft giggle she said, "Slow down."

"Oops, sorry." He pulled away as well. "I like kissing you."

"I like it too." She shifted to stand up. "This just isn't the most comfortable place for making out."

"Oh yeah, I guess it isn't," He also stood. He was about to follow that up with 'we can stop then if you want' when she spoke first, sitting on his bed.

"This would probably be a lot better, don't you think?" Her face was red from both their previous make-out session and her embarrassment at suggesting they continue.

"Yeah, I do." She started to crawl back into his bed and he followed after her. There were definitely some hard days ahead of them, apart and together, but there were easy ones ahead as well. That was just how life was. Hopefully there would be a lot more easy ones than hard ones. Maybe some days it would even be a little of both. Some days it might be difficult to tell. Because somehow his easy day became a hard one only to then become one of the best days of his life.

All Steven truly knew for sure was that for him, kissing Connie was the most normal thing in the world and he had no plans to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Be gentle. I'm new here.


End file.
